If the wall in my basement is leaking very slightly, is the main/only solution to the actual water issue to add grading outside? What else?
It is under a deck, which I can rip up a bit and fill with dirt, but is that likely to solve it?
We noticed from slightly bubbling paint and efflorescence.
The proper solution to water in the basement usually starts from the top down and increases in price the further you go down. The first thing you should be looking at is whether your roof and gutters are functioning properly and discharging all the water from your roof as far away from the foundation as possible, and whether the slope around those points where your roof’s water is discharging properly slopes away from the house as it needs to. Leaky, clogged, overflowing, or nonexistent gutters can be way more problematic to your basement than you realize, and they are stupidly cheap to fix compared to almost any other water-related problem. If they are not operating at 100%, do that first.